JACKSON, Miss. – The Belhaven men's tennis team was defeated by No. 6 William Carey on Monday 6-3 in front of the home crowd. William Carey took all three doubles matches to spur them on to an important conference victory.
Sporting a new look at first doubles,
Nikita Lisov and
Andres Yepez looked strong for the Blazers. They were tied at six games a piece with one of the top doubles combos in the country before falling 8-6.
The second and third doubles slots did not fare as well, losing 8-4 and 8-3 respectively.
Even though the Blazers entered singles matches in a 0-3 hole, the team has been able to come back from early deficits with strong play in singles. Completing the task against a one-loss Crusaders team was going to be a tough assignment.
Jody Claassen quickly dispatched Lisov at first singles 6-1, 6-1 to put the Blazers in a 0-4 hole with only five matches to play.
Belhaven got their first point of the day at second singles where
Jefferson Nino handled MC Visser 6-1, 6-3. Nino shook off a frustrating doubles performance to roll through his singles match and improved to 7-3 on the year.
Daniel Prado took care of his business at third singles 6-3, 6-4 over Edward Spillman and
Enrico Patriarca won in straight sets as well to make it a 4-3 match in William Carey's favor.
The Crusaders would take the final two matches for the overall 6-3 win. They improved to 7-1 and 4-0 in the SSAC.
Belhaven falls to 2-1 in the conference and 8-3 overall.
Doubles
Visser/Classen (WCU) def. Lisov/Yepez (BU) 8-6
Spillman/Sanz (WCU) def. Nino/Duarte (BU) 8-5
Semal/ Benjamin Tahir (WCU) def. Prado/Patriarca (BU) 8-3
Singles
Jody Claassen (WCU) def.
Nikita Lisov (BU) 6-1, 6-1
Jefferson Nino (BU) def. Marthinius Visser (WCU) 6-1, 6-2
Daniel Prado (BU) def. Edward Spillman (WCU) 6-3, 6-4
Robin Semal (WCU) def.
David Mejia (BU) 6-0, 6-0
Enrico Patriarca (BU) def. Arnau Sanz (WCU) 7-6 (6), 6-1
Jose Ruda (WCU) def.
Daniel Duarte (BU) 2-6, 6-4, 10-4
